


Who Walks These Halls

by Honey_Butterscotch



Series: Enter the Dragon [4]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aang & Zuko (Avatar) Friendship, Absolutely no consistent pov im sorry, Air Nomads (Avatar), Airbending & Airbenders, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dragons, Dragons grow fast and mature slowly, Druk the very large baby dragon, Firebending & Firebenders, Gen, Long hair! Zuko, POV Alternating, Precious Aang (Avatar), Sky Bisons (Avatar), Spirit touched Gaang, Surviving Air Nomads (Avatar), Ursa (Avatar) is a Good Parent, We love and appreciate aang in this household, We love and appreciate all characters except a few, You know the rules no character hate for anbody except zhao and ozai, Zuko's literally been shadowing them the whole time, you know who im talking about
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:47:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26734597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Honey_Butterscotch/pseuds/Honey_Butterscotch
Summary: Katara and Sokka are sort of prepared to tell Aang that the Air Nomads have been gone for the past hundred years. They're sort of prepared to tell him all they'll find is an empty temple (save for skeletons of the past). They're not at all prepared for what, or who, they find.
Relationships: Aang & Katara (Avatar), Aang & Sokka (Avatar), Aang & Zuko (Avatar), Druk & Momo, Druk & Zuko (Avatar), Momo & Zuko (Avatar), Ursa & Zuko (Avatar)
Series: Enter the Dragon [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1943896
Comments: 17
Kudos: 290





	Who Walks These Halls

**Author's Note:**

> Is Monk Gyatso gonna be alive? Yes absolutely  
> Why? Because  
> I think he'd be spirit blessed as well (or just a straight up spirit that's been fooling around as a person for most his life) so he'd be alive in this au and probably in the white lotus  
> Gyatso aka the Criptid of the White Lotus  
> I'm just,,,,Aang deserved more and i love him can you tell

Aang looked so excited to return home, grey eyes wide as his smile. He looked so _happy,_ Katara thought she would throw up when they finally told him. When they finally had to break it to him that the Air Nomads hadn't survived, the Sky Bison hadn't survived. That he and Appa were the last fragments of their ancient, dead culture and people. As they flew through the mist, Katara thought she caught a silver-blue shimmer of something serpentine gliding through the sky. She thought she saw someone on the silvery shadow, someone who flickered in black and gold. She blinked and both were gone, as if she had dreamed them up. It was probably a trick of the mist. The Southern Air Temple, Aang's home, came into view and she felt the dread pool in her chest again. 

As they climbed up the path, Katara felt a gaze on the back of her head. It wasn't malicious, but curious in the way animals observed people. She still whipped around, only seeing her brother who was staring at his stomach and mumbling about food. She loved the idiot, but _Spirits,_ sometimes she had the urge to shoot water up his nose. As if she had _that_ much control. First thing she would learn was how to do that. There was something strange about this temple, like it hadn't been empty for the past hundred years. Like someone had been walking and running and _living_ in the same space they were right now. It was an eerie feeling. She ignored it and watched her brother get whooped at airball when something caught her eye. It was hiding by a snowdrift, shimmering. It was a tiny red...stone? It was glossy and smooth and shaped strangely, and far too thin to be anything but a scale. Maybe it was from some type of bird? Maybe that is what she felt watching her, what she thought she saw gliding through the mist. Aang grabbed her hand and pulled her from her mind. "Come on Katara, I want you guys to meet someone! He's someone who's very special to me!"

The statue wasn't cracked like she was expecting, covered in snow and weathered by time. It was clean and smooth, like someone had repaired whatever damage done to it. "He was the best air bender ever! He pretty much raised me, and Monk Gyatso taught me everything I know." Katara's heart cracked a little bit more as Aang stared at the statue of a man now long dead, now long since murdered most likely, with affection and admiration. The same way she knew she stared at her mother's necklace. She wished she could hide all the destruction done to his people away from him.

* * *

The room Aang had taken them too was straight up creepy, like it was filled with spirits of people, and Sokka didn't even _believe_ in Spirits that much. He respected them, sure, on the off chance they really existed so he wouldn't get struck down in the wrath of one if it got angry. But seriously, it was like the room was haunted and he disliked this _very_ much. The statue of one giant woman in particular, with fans and a fierce cut to her stone face, definitely intimidated him to an unreasonable extent. She was an Avatar, apparently, and maybe his feeling of intimidation wasn't _that_ unreasonable. He smacked the back of his neck, feeling something pinned there. It wasn't a bug and Sokka was absolutely ready to ditch this room. Ditch this room, and catch that lemur! He forgot the strange presence in the room, and attempted to outrun the freakishly fast little airbender his sister had decided to keep. He almost thought he saw a flicker of someone in the corner of his eye, like a shadow. Nobody besides this chunky little lemur had lived there for years, and not for much longer if either Aang or Sokka (for totally different reasons) had anything to say about it.

* * *

Aang went speeding after the lemur, ready to finally cuddle one of these familiar little creatures after 100 years. They were the best little pillows, and plenty cute and funny. He wondered briefly as he went sliding down the side of the temple, if there were more. The lemur zipped through an opening and Aang followed, and blanched. There was a woman sitting there, stirring something in a pot and long black hair tied back from her face. She looked ageless and beautiful and kind, almost like the female monks of the Eastern and Western Temples that his friend,who had been allowed to visit whenever they wanted to, told him about because they were neither male nor female and the monks were always open and accepting. She tapped her ladle against the side of the pot, and it smelled like mountain herbs and the vegetables the monks produced in their gardens. "Hello, Avatar. I am Ursa, and the soup will be finished in just a minute. Sit, please." She smiled, with some type of an inflection at the corners of her eyes that made him comply and stare eagerly at the pot of soup. The lemur that curled on her shoulders jumped into his lap, and somehow ignored Sokka's calls.

* * *

So, apparently, the temple wasn't abandoned. It was inhabited by a soup-making, probably killer Fire Nation woman. Sokka stared at her, the faux (it couldn't be real) kindness that glowed in her dim amber eyes. He almost wanted to believe that the soup (vegetable soup, he never wanted to eat vegetables more than ever) was not poisoned. She somehow reminded Sokka of his mom, who he never quite talked about as much as Katara but he did remember her a lot. Maybe it was the way she smiled and the way her eyes creased at the corners as she did so, maybe it was the way she beckoned him and Katara to sit beside Aang. She didn't look like his mother, not at all. His mother's hair and skin were warm and brown and her eyes were a shade of blue he could only find in Katara's face (and his own, despite the insistence that he looked mostly like his dad). The woman who sat before them was pale skinned and black haired and her eyes were a shade of amber found in fires even if she wasn't a bender. "Please, sit. We have been waiting for some time. I see Momo here managed to get you here with much trouble." She indicated the white and brown lemur snoozing in Aang's lap. "Miss Ursa, what do you mean 'we'?" Aang had finally startled from his vegetable induced trance. "Well, many of us. Myself, Momo, the dragons, and my son." Did she say _dragons?_ A red dragon whose head would probably come up at his hip (that was a dragon, oh holy spirits) slipped in from the same entrance they came from, and a boy melted from the shadows by the doorway. 

He could only be the woman's son, his skin the same pale shade as hers, and hair the same raven, their faces the same sharp, high cut at the cheekbones and nose. But his eyes, instead of dim amber, were a yellow-gold that mimicked the dragon beside him. He didn't look evil for a Fire Nation boy, just short and skinny and curious, from the way he tilted his head at them. "Oh, Zuko, were you following them the whole time?" The boy- Zuko, apparently- nodded. Wow, that's creepy. "Are there more?" Aang had sprung up like an arctic sponge, already flinging his arms at Zuko like he was preparing to attack him with a hug. Zuko took three steps back at Aang's intensity. "Many more. It's a nest of 30 now, not including Momo, Mom, and me." He moved strangely, like he was tiptoeing, with a sort of grace Sokka would see in polar wolf leopard except he was even more fae and strange. The dragon pounced on Zuko with a flap of its wings and curled its too large body around Zuko's shoulders. "Druk." Zuko stroked the dragon's shimmering hide like it was the lemur. "Mom, may I take them to Aunt?" Ursa crossed her arms and pointed at the soup. "After we eat?" 

"Yes, after all of you eat."

* * *

Katara had the scale of a dragon in her pocket, and was following a boy with long, tangled black hair down the hallways she had been led to believe were abandoned. Her ears strained to hear his footsteps and came up with nothing. Druk's talons clicked against the stone when he stopped flying but was otherwise fairly silent as well. "When we came here, Azula and I found these beside a few skeletons. They were the only Air Nomad bodies here, according to the dragons." He passed Aang a few talismans. "These...they belong to the elders who told me I was the Avatar when I turned twelve. Except Gyatso's." Katara watched her friend's fingers trace against the warm colored wood. "Uncle Daiki said that he and many other dragons helped the Air Nomads escape. And they killed the soldiers who were attacking." Zuko breathed green sparks from his mouth and Katara jumped back. "You're an ashmaker?"

"No, I'm a firebender."

Aang's eyes shone at the dying sparks as they hit the floor. "You can make dragon fire?" Zuko nodded, and Druk breathed a tiny puff of colorful flames as if in comparison. "Azula never really tried for dragon fire, said it was my "thing". She preferred making lightning." Could firebenders even make lightning? "Is she storm blessed?" 

"Aunt always said so."

"That your sister was a favourite of Indra?"

The voice that cut in was female, but a deep echo that shook Katara's bones and raised the hair on her neck. 'Aunt' was apparently a ginormous silvery blue dragon, draconic face framed by a stark white ruff and curving grey horns, wrapped many times around the base of a pillar. The dragon breathed deep grey smoke that smelled like something hot and sweet and Katara couldn't help but notice the massive fangs tucked in the dragon's mouth. "This is my Aunt Amaterasu. She is why we knew to wait for you." Zuko was scaling Amaterasu's coils, bare feet sliding along the scales as he climbed closer to the top of her head. "How could she know? Do dragons see the future?"

"Very few of us are blessed by Agni with his gift of divination, but the spirit of the Sun chose me for his great gift." 

Katara felt somehow vindicated as her brother's jaw dropped. Let's see him mumble about "spiritual bullcrap" again. 

"Is Daiki still here?"

Katara could see the hope burning in Aang's eyes, hope that there was still someone or something that he could hold on to from the past. Almost like a fire that was fed when the dragon nodded with a curl of her snarling smile. "He is old, but not too old that you have to worry about him joining the Spirit World for a long time." Zuko was perched beside a curving horn, the charcoal of his hair cutting against the shimmering pale colors of the giant dragon. "How do you know Uncle Daiki?" 

"I was born 112 years ago and Daiki visited the temple the most of all the dragons. Air Nomads liked collecting knowledge from the nations almost as much as the Air Nomads. He brought us lots of stuff to read!" Zuko propelled himself off Amaterasu's head and landed on the ground quietly. He leaned close to Aang, with tilted head. "You don't look 112. You look younger than Azula."

"I was frozen in an iceberg for 100 years!"

"That's a strange thing to do."

"I dunno, it was pretty _cool._ "

Katara choked on her breathe, dimly noting her brother's grumbles over how nobody laughed at his puns. She'd later argue to him that Aang's humor was much better than his and at least he didn't make jokes about her sewing. 

"Um, Amaterasu?"

"Yes, Avatar Aang?"

"Did anybody escape? Am I really the... _last_ air bender?"

Amaterasu's sweet smoking breathe curled around them in twisting shapes, carrying coloured sparks.

"I can assure you, Aang, are not alone."

* * *

Aang felt something burst and bubble in his stomach up to his throat and threatened to spill from his eyes. _"I'm not the last."_ It was a hope he had wished to be true the minute the water tribe siblings said nobody had seen an airbender in 100 years. It burned in the front of his skull, against his ribcage, and in his tattoos. He was not the only one, he wasn't the last of a culture he hadn't truly gotten to know yet. And he could now. "We need to get to the North Pole. Katara and I need to master waterbending and maybe we can find more airbenders along the way!" Druk chirped and nipped at his sleeve, and Momo the lemur was now splayed on Aang's head. "Hey Zuko, are you comin with us?" Aang knew Kuzon had to be gone now. But maybe, Aang could have a firebender friend once again.

"It is my destiny."

**Author's Note:**

> My heart breaks just a little everytime i think of how Aang is the last person in canon who knows his culture, who remembers what it once was.


End file.
